“Proof” is ideal for the witching hours of the night, when you cannot sleep, idly flip television channels to idly flip television channels, and then toss the remote / click the laptop shut and wonder if you might be crazy.

Incidentally, that’s where Auburn’s play begins, and we are ushered into what I’d call Second City Gothic (sister to the Southern Gothic subgenre): a big, drafty Chicago house looms, complete with a clanking radiator, absent mother, ghost, tortured heroine wearing a key around her neck, and a supernatural object (the proof itself, which fairly glows).

While ostensibly about mathematics, the tense moments feature Catherine learning kindness—we cringe as she illuminates the shortcomings of her fellow players, but we forgive her impatience when she practices kindness with her father, too far gone to retort.

How far do you trust what you intuitively know?

When prowling our own houses where things go bump in the night, don’t we all grasp for someone who believes in our logic—that inelegant architecture we build to explain who we are?